This post includes an excerpt from chapter 6, which provides a extensive look at how to acknowledge, recognize, and respond to the sixth step in the journey through dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease: sudden and dramatic mood swings in both directions.

This chapter shows that frequent, unexpected, and severe mood mood swings are the sixth step in the journey through dementias and Alzheimer’s disease. This chapter discusses how this step impacts our loved ones and us as caregivers. It also discusses practical, real-time, and loving ways we as caregivers should respond and help our loved ones traverse this step in the journey.

“Dramatic and sudden mood swings are part and parcel of the journey through dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease, and they begin to materialize during the step of paranoia, but they can continue throughout the course of these diseases.

There can be several triggers for these mood swings: environmental, physiological, perceptual, and neurological. Sometimes all of these can be in play at the same time, but normally the trigger is singular.

Let’s take a look at each of the areas that can trigger a mood swing in our loved ones suffering with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease and how we can respond to and/or eliminate them.

Environmental changes are often the trigger for sudden and dramatic mood swings. These can include something as seemingly simple as moving something out of a familiar place or having our loved ones in a setting they are not familiar with. It can also include the presence of strangers (or people they don’t remember) and it can include being asked to do something new or unfamiliar.

For example, one of the most common instances of these kinds of mood swings is with medical personnel. Most nurses, nurse practitioner, physician’s assistants, and doctors have stories about routine care they were providing for a patient with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease that quickly deteriorated into yelling, screaming, aggression, and sometimes even physical assault.”